English Writer Views Our House of Bishops

Episcopal News Service. October 22, 1987 [87211]

Susan Young, News Editor of The Church Times

LONDON (DPS, Oct. 22) -- The Presiding Bishop took maybe three minutes to describe how he hoped to see the morning's agenda proceed and then looked around to see if this was understood and accepted. It was. "Okay," said the Most Rev. Edmond L. Browning, "let's go!" And another day in the annual meeting of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the USA was under way.

In certain respects the six-day meeting was just like many another churchy event reported by myself over the years in England. The debates were earnest, theologically-based and good natured. The issues raised and the arguments deployed were much the same. Large tracts of the agenda were -- how shall I put it? -- of limited interest.

So, just like home. There were differences, of course, some of them serious and significant. The most immediately obvious difference, however, was a somewhat frivolous one and lay in the nature of the venue itself -- a convention center and resort outside of Chicago.

Among its amenities was a dimly lit replica of a nineteenth century New Orleans street complete with a group of dummy musicians performing to taped music and a dummy courtesan beckoning alluringly from a balcony to the bishops passing beneath. It was hilarious. It was also utterly impossible to picture the English bishops patronising such a place. Judging by comments made during the week many of the American bishops felt that it wasn't really their milieu, either.

But, to an English visitor, the most remarkable thing about the meeting was the fact that I and other representatives of the media were there at all. For the English House of Bishops holds its sessions in private.

Well, let us be precise about this: in theory the meetings are open to the media but for all practical purposes they are in fact closed. That is to say, if you ask when and where a meeting is to be held you will be told, but the information is not noised abroad. And, if the press does turn up, the bishops go into private session as soon as anything of the slightest interest arises.

The American bishops do conduct some of their business in private -- as when they broke into groups to discuss the question of admitting women to the episcopate, for example. But even then they apologised to the reporters and explained whey they felt they had to do it. And all the plenary sessions were held in public.

Unlike their English counterparts, the American bishops take the view that it is right and proper for their deliberations to be open for all to hear. Not only are they prepared to take the risk which is inherent in that attitude but in general, they appear actively to welcome publicity.

They actually wanted the Church Times to cover this meeting -- in the hope that our reporting would help to promote a fairer and more accurate image of their Church in the eyes of the Anglican Communion.

Along with many other Episcopalians they are fed up with the portrayal of their Church as one led by a bunch of trendies; as one in decline and disarray through implementing radical policies and entertaining "heretical" ideas; as one callously driving out traditionalists; and as one whose goings-on are liable to tear the Anglican Communion apart.

The bishops did not put all this in exactly those terms, you understand and they may be wrong in their perception of how the Episcopal Church is perceived elsewhere. But that is undoubtedly what they mean and how they see it.

Little about recent House of Bishops meeting supported the view of the American Church as a disintegrating juggernaut careering out of control with wild and heedless men at the helm. As I have already indicated, the American bishops proved that they could stage debates as sober and civil (and as dull) as anything to be found in the C of E.

Even on the most contentious issues the atmosphere remained well-mannered. Such rhetoric as there was mainly confined to the small minority of bishops fighting a rear guard action against innovations like women bishops; and the majority were constantly at pains to make sure that the dissidents were heard and made to feel wanted.

This attitude was typified by Bishop John Spong of Newark, one of ECUSA's best known (some would say most notorious) liberals, who had two presentments, or formal accusations, hanging over his head -- one of a doctrinal nature, the other involving an administrative dispute with a parish. Like some one could mention in the Church of England, Bishop Spong appeared to be thriving on all the hoo-ha.

Anyway, he it was who spoke up in support of Dean Edward MacBurney whose election as Bishop of Quincy is in jeopardy because the diocese advertised for a man who would refuse to ordain women. Bishop Spong urged his fellow liberal bishops to encourage their diocesan standing committees to confirm Dean MacBurney's election for the sake of the catholicity of the Church.

However, it was not just for the sake of catholicity, nor even unity, that the mainstream ECUSA bishops want to keep their dissident brothers in the fellowship, but for their own sakes -- they like them as individuals and want them to go on being around. Nor is it merely one-way traffic: several of the dissident bishops openly expressed their determination to stay in ECUSA.

In these circumstances, the failure of the committee appointed to hold talks between mainstream and dissident bishops to agree on their report was not the blow it might otherwise have been.

That report, on ways of enabling Episcopalians who cannot accept women bishops to remain in ECUSA, did not get an airing because of the disagreement. But all is not lost on that account: no one was prepared to admit that they were beaten and so, before the House of Bishops meeting had ended, the Presiding Bishop had announced that he would be appointed a fresh committee to resume the talks.

Though it was not debated the report was in every bishop's hands and it is instructive to see the rocks on which the document foundered -- the recommendations on the pastoral provisions to be made for congregations which reject women bishops.

Such congregations, the report suggested, should be allowed to have an alternative bishop for a period of up to six years, at which point the arrangement would be reviewed. Committee members on both sides objected to this -- dissidents because they felt the provision did not go far enough, others because they feared that to bypass a bishop in this way might undermine the whole structure of ECUSA.

Also instructive was the attitude brought to the talks by both parties to the dispute, as revealed in a letter from the committee's joint chairmen. A "spirit of mutuality and respect" and characterised the discussions, they wrote, and members were of one mind in affirming their commitment to the unity of the Church.

They added: "Our differing positions about the ordination of women to the episcopate are real and they are held, on both sides, for serious doctrinal reasons. But so, too, we are convinced that the issue which has brought us together will continue to be an issue for some time to come and that maintaining communion with one another is the will of Christ."

It remains to be seen whether these talks can save the day for ECUSA if, as seems probable, they go ahead with appointing (electing) women bishops. Perhaps, in the end, the talks will fail to find a solution but, if so, it won't be for want of trying by all concerned.

Something else at the Chicago meeting was instructive, too: the activities of the women and their male supporters who favor the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate. A sizeable number of them had booked into the hotel in order to lobby the bishops -- and their wives -- and to listen to the debates.

In the Church of England these American women are often thought of as strident hellcats. Maybe they are sometimes, but it wasn't on show at Chicago.

Admittedly, they were in largely sympathetic company, the great majority of American bishops wholly accept women priests and the great majority (nearly 90 % of those at the meeting) accept women bishops in principle. But, when a report in which the women had a keen interest ran into trouble, they did not resort to tantrums.

Instead they adopted what you might call political tactics. For example, they held back until the end of the meeting ("until tempers have cooled") a statement which originally was to have been presented on the same day as the report.

This report recommended that ECUSA should proceed to the consecration of women. Objections began to be raised and not only from opponents of women bishops. For a while, given the known views of most of the bishops, it looked as if the House might be going to shoot itself in the foot by refusing to accept the report.

The crisis passed, though, and the following day the report was accepted with very little more ado. On the final day, however, there was further agitation, this time over a second statement being circulated which committed anyone signing it to refrain from celebrating the Eucharist while in England next summer.

All this suggests that, despite their conviction, the American bishops are rather twitchy over the issue of women bishops. They are in a difficult and unenviable position. They believe that pioneering the entry of women into the episcopate is something laid on them by God to do. Equally, they do not want the move to precipitate schism -- and I suspect that they are at least a little fearful that it might do just that.

As you would expect, the question of women bishops loomed large at the Chicago meeting but in terms of time (if not energy) expended it formed only a small part of a prodigiously big and wide-ranging agenda.

Another major debate was to a report on sexual morality. In a way this is as serious a flash-point in ECUSA's life as women in the three-fold ministry because of the widespread rejection of traditional morality by American society and because ECUSA members are often themselves involved in the trend.

(Interestingly, the bishops also had in from of them the address by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the pre-Lambeth Conference seminar in August in which he pointed out that "Christians from other countries, including England, are dismayed at the apparent collapse of marriage discipline on ECUSA, not least among bishops and priests...")

In the event the report was pretty traditionalist in its approach, affirming life-long monogamous marriage as the norm for Christians and rejecting extra-marital relationships as acceptable. The question, the report said, was how the Church was to teach these principles without "tedious moralising." As for same-sex relationships, the report challenged the Church to suspend its ancient judgements against homosexuals in order to hear what they have to say and let them know that they have the love of the Church.

Then there were debates on the paper from urban bishops about economic justice and Christian conscience and on Christian initiation and Holy Communion for infants and children. The House also galloped through a breath-taking string of resolutions of a political nature, any one of which would rate a full-scale debate in our General Synod.

If that seems rather superficial treatment of serious and complex topics it has to be remembered that American bishops have to seize the opportunity to pronounce on anything of this nature because they meet far less often than their English brothers.

Shortcomings there undoubtedly were in the Chicago meeting, but the thing about it which struck me most forcibly was the general air of enthusiasm (in the good sense), of hope, vigor and a readiness to meet challenge.

Perhaps the English House of Bishops is similarly imbued with these qualities -- who can say? But, listening in to General Synod proceedings year after year, the impression comes across sometimes that the Church of England is engaged in little more than a damage-limitation exercise.

So there was a freshness about the Chicago meeting that was a pleasure to experience. It would be splendid if our bishops could say, as the American bishops did in the pastoral letter issued at the end of their meeting, "We believe that we are today a healthy, vibrant, balanced and perhaps most importantly, an expectant Church."

Bishop Browning summed it up, too, in his address to the House -- "My friends, I believe that this Church is on the move, we have got our act together and the message from everywhere I go is that it is time to get the show on the road. I am here to tell you that the train is leaving the station and it's time either to get on the train or continue to sit on your bags."